


coming out of my cage and i've been doing just fine

by bowlingfornerds



Series: tumblr prompts [17]
Category: The 100
Genre: Canon Universe, Coming Out, Other, Really its not even romantic its just a relationship I love, during season 1, non-binary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 12:06:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5090102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlingfornerds/pseuds/bowlingfornerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From vegan-johnmurphy-trash's prompt on tumblr: FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS STUDY! oookkaayy a fic where Monroe Comes out as non-binary (slightly obsessed with that headcanon atm) eeeaarrmm preferrably Canon but I don't particularly care. : D</p><p>Entirely canon universe, Monroe is non-binary and this is how Murphy finds out about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	coming out of my cage and i've been doing just fine

**Author's Note:**

> Let it be known that I am not non-binary and I have no idea how the intricacies of it work, even though I get the basics, and definitely did a little research before writing.  
> This was entirely written for one of my favourite mutuals on tumblr, so here you go, I hope I did it justice.
> 
> Barely even edited. Enjoy.

Out of everyone in camp, Harper probably should have noticed first. Then again, it’s not something everyone notices, and maybe Monroe hadn’t even noticed it herself. Either way, it was Murphy who picked up on the facial expressions Monroe pulled, when he wasn’t listening in to Bellamy’s monologues or just trying to guess what other people were thinking.

The first time it happened, it was because Harper had grinned at Monroe while being flocked with girls, after calling for a ‘girl’s day’, and Monroe’s expression had suddenly turned uncomfortable. Murphy just assumed, from where he sat by the dropship, that she really just didn’t like the idea of putting on makeup made of dirt – hell, he understood that.

But then she kissed Fox and Mbege (God rest his soul) called out that there was free ‘girl on girl action’ by the meat hut, and Monroe had turned around, fire blazing in her eyes, over Mbege’s words.

“It is not!” She yelled at him, and that was the last time anyone saw her kissing Fox, even though they definitely saw her and Sterling a couple of days later. But Murphy just punched Mbege’s arm after he walked away, all proud of himself for riling up Monroe, because he thought it was a dick thing to say in the first place, because he hadn’t noticed that Monroe was more upset over the way he phrased the announcement than him announcing it in the first place.

Then Charlotte murdered Wells and Murphy was strung up and Monroe didn’t go anywhere near the mob, just following silently along – not wanting to stop them and have their wrath turned on her (he couldn’t blame her for that) but also wanting to call out that they should at least give him a fair trial. After that he disappeared for a week and blocked out the torture and the blood; the sound of his own screams and basically the entire event. Which was another reason that Harper, Monroe’s best friend besides Sterling, should have noticed before him – because she was around her longer.

But then, when Monroe started braiding her hair back and going out on hunts, when Murphy returned, he noticed that there was something different about her; that she didn’t sit around in the circle of girls, but she didn’t just hang out with the guys talking about guns. She wove between the two and held conversations with all of them and Murphy forgot about it because a lot of people could do that, even if he entirely couldn’t. (That was probably because everyone hated him, though.)

Murphy remembered Monroe from the Sky Box – they were allotted two hours every day to be with people other than their cellmates (Jasper Jordan grew tiring after the first five minutes of being in the same room as him) – and they weren’t exactly friends but they sat together and bitched about people, and Mbege was his best friend but he always got himself into trouble and his free time was always taken away. Monroe filled the gap and she didn’t seem to mind – which meant that he spent enough time with her to know when she looked like she didn’t like something, or really just had something to say.

There were a couple more events that Murphy noticed and promptly forgot about, but it came down to the day she was staring at a knife in her hand and he landed himself next to her on the ground.

“What are you doing?” He drawled with a raised eyebrow. Monroe glanced over and shrugged.

“I’m considering cutting my hair off,” she replied with a shrug. Murphy raised his eyebrows; he’d kind of liked her hair – it was bright in a way that only Clarke’s was otherwise, and the braids made her give off this warrior-like vibe. She looked pretty ruthless with them, to be fair.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Some days I just really don’t like having long hair,” she mumbled in response.

“I thought girls were supposed to have long hair,” Murphy pointed out, glancing from the knife to her face as she huffed. He recognised the roll of her eyes and the pointed look.

“No one’s _supposed_ to have long hair,” she told him. “But if they _were_ , then I don’t think I should be having it.” Monroe shrugged then, handing him the knife and standing up. She left him, dumbfounded on the ground until his brain ticked over and he understood what she meant. When he turned around to look for her, though, she was gone.

Murphy still felt Harper should have figured it out before him; she should have known first as the best friend and someone who wasn’t as emotionally inept as him – but Monroe had trusted him with the information all the same. And while he desperately wanted to run to someone who would actually know what to do with it (or forget it all together and move on), he knew he couldn’t; because if Monroe wanted people to know about it, then she would have told them, and if she told him, then she thought he could do the right thing about it.

Murphy spent very little time in school after his parents died, so he definitely wasn’t attending when he was old enough to learn about genders – but he assumed the word ‘non-binary’ would pop up somewhere amongst that, and he wondered if that was what Monroe was. Or maybe there was an entire subsection he completely didn’t understand.

A day or so later, he still had her knife and Monroe had returned from a hunting trip; dumping her bag of game by the fire pit for someone else to deal with. Murphy jogged over, falling into step with her as she raised an eyebrow at him.

“I could cut your hair for you, if you want,” he suggested, which was the only way he could figure out how to tell her that he understood. The beginnings of a smile played about her lips, but she looked away to hide it.

“I don’t know if I want to just yet,” she told him. “But if I do, you’ll be the first one I’ll call.” Murphy nodded and they walked in silence for a couple more beats; heading towards her tent, it seemed. Then, he realised what he’d thought.

“What do I call you, then?” Murphy asked. She glanced up at him, confused.

“Monroe – that’s my name.” Murphy rolled his eyes.

“Oh, I thought it was Mary,” he replied sarcastically. “I meant, gender-wise – do you go by her or him or what?” Monroe’s face turned blank as she thought.

“I don’t know,” she replied with a shrug. “I only started realising what I was feeling before we came to the ground, and I guess I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it.”

“Tell me when you do?” Murphy suggested, surprising the both of them. He wasn’t one to care – not really – about other people. But Monroe was strong and sarcastic, and he’d seen her handle a gun. She was decent company back in Lock Up and stopped him from getting into a lot of fights that would have ended very badly for him (as well as taken a couple of punches in his honour, in the process). For some reason that he couldn’t completely grasp, Murphy cared about Monroe. So she nodded silently, and stopped when they stood outside of her tent.

“In the meantime,” she said slowly, stopping him from where he turned to leave. “You could definitely refer to me as Your Highness.” She smiled as he rolled his eyes.

“Not likely.” Murphy could hear Monroe’s laugh as he walked away, shoving his hands in his pockets, and he noticed that he hadn’t heard her do so since they were up in the Sky Box. It was nice to hear her laugh again.

And even though he said it wasn’t going to happen, he was on the cooking detail that evening, so when he got his food, he paused, before getting some for Monroe too, and walking up to where she stood in the queue.

“Your Highness,” he smirked, bowing slightly as he handed over the meat they’d caught that day. Monroe laughed knowingly as he turned around, catching Harper’s confused look, but he really didn’t care. As long as Monroe was happy, he didn’t mind if the entire camp stared at him that way.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please hit the kudos button and comment what you thought (and if I definitely fucked up with the representation). This is definitely a new head canon of mine, so I'm pretty proud that I actually finished this.


End file.
